Pen & Sword Books

General Stanisław Maczek's memoir chronicles the bravery, sacrifice, and disillusionment of Polish soldiers in WWII.General Stanisław Maczek’s stirring memoir captures the élan, the sacrifice and the disappointed hopes of the Polish soldiers who fought alongside the Allies during the Second World War.As Commander of the 10th Motorised Cavalry Brigade in the September 1939 campaign, his men played a crucial role in resisting the German advance before crossing into Hungary with orders to rebuild the Polish Army on French soil. Fighting a further rearguard action during the 1940 Allied retreat, he and his men escaped to Britain. In February 1942, Maczek assumed command of 1st Polish Armoured Division, created out of the Polish forces which had been training in Scotland since 1940. In July 1944 the Division landed in Normandy and was responsible for closing the Falaise Gap at Mont Ormel and Chambois. Thereafter it fought on through Belgium and Holland, ultimately accepting the surrender of the German Navy at Wilhelmshaven.The Price of Victory is an inspiring tale of bravery and skill in the face of overwhelming odds, and of determination to fight for Poland on foreign soil. Having been welcomed as liberators in so many towns across Europe, it was the ultimate irony that the terms of the Yalta Agreement meant the Poles’ aim of liberating their country was denied them.

In turbulent 1830s Mexico, Texas and Yucatán declared independence, leading to the U.S.-Mexican War and European intrigue.One nation in turmoil, another seeking aggrandizement, smaller states jostling for security, mercenary expeditions, and political and racial armed struggles breaking out. In 1835 the northern Mexican state of Texas declared its independence and won it after defeating General Santa Anna’s forces at the Battle of San Jacinto. A few years later, as a larger and looming war with the United States approached, the gulf state of Yucatan did the same by claiming itself a separate republic. For Mexican authorities, the existence of breakaway republics on its periphery represented an existential crisis and an opportunity for U.S. and European interests.For many on both sides, the US-Mexican war officially beginning in 1846 after the Republic of Texas was annexed to the United States was merely a continuation of a conflict that began ten years earlier. Adding to the turmoil, the uprising in Yucatan by indigenous Maya against a criollo minority in 1847 and the contemplated military intervention and annexation of that republic by American leadership towards the end of the war sheds light on a conflict with ethnic, national, and international dimensions.In his second transnational history of the Mexican-American War, historian Benjamin J. Swenson examines the breakaway republics of Texas and Yucatan and demonstrates how the war was not only a manifestation of American expansionism and internal Mexican disunion, but a geostrategic contest involving European states seeking to curtail a nascent imperial power’s dominance in North America.

The industrial revolution was forged with the lives of our ancestors’ children.All over Britain, children and young people toiled for hours every day. Their workplaces were pitch-dark mines, fiery furnaces, brightly-lit mills with deadly machines, and mud-filled brickyards.Some workers were pauper apprentices, sent thousands of miles from their homes and indentured until the age of twenty-one.Almost every item in our ancestors’ homes and wardrobes was made by children and youngsters: buttons, glass, carpets, cotton, cutlery, pins, candles, lace, pottery, straw hats, and even matches.In grand houses and ordinary homes, tiny chimney sweeps climbed chimneys choked with soot, and boys and girls worked as domestic servants. On the land, both sexes worked in all weathers. Children worked at home, too — many helped their parents earn a living.From the early 1800s, men like Robert Owen tried to improve children’s lives. But reform was held back for decades by wealthy mill-owners, landowners and politicians who believed that profits were more important than people.Sue Wilkes tells the story of the battle for workplace and educational reforms led by Lord Shaftesbury, Richard Oastler, and the indefatigable factory inspectors. But it took many decades to transform society’s attitude towards childhood itself.Young Workers of the Industrial Age takes a fresh look at the childhoods stolen to create Britain’s industrial empire.

Captain James Stirling’s journals offer a firsthand account of the 42nd Regiment’s actions during the Peninsular War.For such a famous regiment as the 42nd Regiment of Foot (The Black Watch), the number of published memoirs is surprisingly low. The discovery of the three hand-written journals in the collection of the National Library of Scotland covering the period from August 1808, when the regiment left Gibraltar for Lisbon until the end of 1813, are therefore of significant importance in our understanding of the actions of this regiment during the Peninsular War.James Stirling became an Ensign by purchase in the 42nd Foot on 14 August 1805 at the age of thirteen, vice Ensign Thomas Munro. He then rose to the rank of Lieutenant without purchase on 27 August 1807. Stirling served in the Peninsula with 42nd Foot from September 1808 to January 1809, then at Walcheren and again in the Peninsula from May 1812 to August 1813 (from October 1812 as Aide de Camp to his father Major General James Stirling). On his father's retirement from active service, he joined the Portuguese Army from 9 November 1813 as a Brevet Captain in the 11th Line Regiment, remaining with them until 13 October 1814. He then became a Captain in the 42nd by purchase on 11 May 1815. He saw action at Walcheren, Corunna, Salamanca, Burgos, the Pyrenees, Orthez and Toulouse. He retired from the army in 1817 and died on 20 January 1818 aged only 25 years old.These absorbing and revealing journals cover Captain James Stirling’s entire period of active service with the 42nd Foot, as well as the time he served with the Portuguese forces until the end of 1813, his sudden death preventing him from completing the record of his service with the Portuguese Army in 1814. Author Gareth Glover provides explanatory notes throughout to add extra context to Stirling’s commentary, making this book accessible for both the historian and enthusiast.

Battle of Monte Natale brings together contemporary accounts showing war, not only at the strategic level involving Corps, Division, Brigade and Battalion, but also the individual level, by extensive use of War Diaries, personal accounts, missing person reports and the inspiring stories of heroism and the sacrifices made which were recognized by the awards for valor. It is the story of those individuals who fought and died in the Battle of Monte Natale. Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, by words, pictures, and maps it shows what happened in the three weeks from 17th January to 7th February 1944 in an area of just nine square kilometres. It is a unique glimpse of an important battle from both sides of the conflict and includes personal German and British views of the battle. Few books about World War II show a battle in such detail.

A memoir recounting SQMS Jack Alcock's daring SAS mission into German-occupied Alsace Lorraine under extreme conditions.Operation Pistol was a British operation performed by 2 SAS during World War 2 launching 51 SAS soldiers into the German territory of Alsace Lorraine 80 miles ahead of the American forces, running alongside Operation Loyton. Of those 51 soldiers, SQMS Jack Alcock commanded a four man party from his C3 group and this is the story of his incredible bravery that awarded him the Croix de Guerre with Silver Star.Jack’s group parachuted in to France in extreme weather conditions lacking vital supplies of food and suffering the theft of their radio receiver they fought through enemy territory seeking shelter with sympathetic locals along the way experiencing a close call with the Gestapo at one farmstead to eventually reach the front line position of the American Fourth armorerd Division near Arracourt where he was debriefed by Colonel Bruce C Clarke of Command A.Jack later returned to France with his son to retrace his footsteps for this incredible memoir of determination, courage and tenacity.

Explores Nazi and Japanese WWII human experimentation, revealing the horrifying abuses, motivations, and post-war consequences, including evasion of justice.Among the most appalling cruelties perpetrated throughout the course of the Second World War was undoubtedly that of human medical and military experimentation conducted upon both living and deceased human beings. The various Nazi human experimentation programs were initially carried out not so much in the pursuit of any particular scientific discipline, but largely as a result of the Third Reich’s obsession with race and eugenics. However, this criminal sub-discipline of the Nazi fascination, with its warped racial ideologies, was excused as little other than collateral damage by many of the Nazi physicians and their assistants. Germany’s Axis ally, the Japanese Empire, notorious for its cruelty and sadism ran its own independent programs of human experimentation such as Unit 731 where human beings were not only subject to the most appalling abuses but were injected with cocktails of poisons and/or diseases and in some instances were dissected while fully conscious without any anaesthesia being administered beforehand. It can be said that both Third Reich Germany and Imperial Japan had a more or less inexhaustible supply of human Guinea pigs throughout the Second World War for its ghastly enterprise in human medical experimentation. These unfortunate souls consisted largely of concentration camp inmates or in the case of the Japanese the indigenous peoples of the lands they conquered along with British, American, Indian and Australian Allied prisoners of war.Yet what was the true purpose of these so-called experiments and what requisites if any were, they to serve? And does any evidence suggest that mutual cooperation existed between Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire towards the collation of data through the execution of these ghastly endeavours? Another facet examined within this work is why those Japanese physicians involved in human experimentation and medical torture were excused indictments for war crimes when the evidence against them was clearly so overwhelming? And is there any truth to suggest that the Allied powers benefited from the material obtained through questioning at the end of the Second World War? The complicity of both the German and Japanese pharmaceutical companies also has to be brought into question as many cooperated willingly with the military making handsome profits in the process.This work is written in an attempt at analysing all of these factors within the context of a single volume, utilising the testimonies of perpetrator and victim through many new first-hand and archival sources.This volume also serves as a horrifying and sobering reminder of the capability of man’s inhumanity through two of the worst military regimes of twentieth-century history.

Examines the shift from hand-craft to mechanized firearm production, focusing on the French Model 1777 and Russian Model 1808 muskets.A variety of factors surround military firearms — they needed to be produced in large numbers to a standardised pattern at an affordable price. This book examines the transition from traditional hand-craft methods to the beginnings of mechanised manufacture using as examples the French Model 1777 and the Russian Model 1808 infantry muskets.A number of factors led to this choice. The French Model 1777 musket, designed by Honoré Blanc working under General Gribeauval, contained many novel features which became blueprints for the arms of numerous countries and was copied in its entirety by Russia. Another factor is that they are the only firearms whose manufacture is covered in contemporary accounts. A third factor is that they provide contrasts in their methods of manufacture; the French 1777 musket was largely produced by hand-craft methods, whereas in Russia we see the beginnings of extensive mechanisation in the early 19th century.Another important aspect which appears is ‘interchangeability’ — the ability to exchange identical parts of identical mechanism without ‘special adjustment’. This is a vital factor at the foundation of modern manufacturing and first appears in early 18th century France, was pursued again by Blanc in 1777 and was picked up in Russia.For the first time, all these ‘technologies’ are examined, explained, compared and contrasted in extensive detail.

The Royal Marines had the distinction of serving in every major land campaign of the First World War, as well as participating in most minor ones. They also served afloat as an element of the Royal Navy. For the greater part, the morale and esprit de corps of the formation was second to none, wherever its men found themselves and whatever challenges they faced. This new history examines the participation of the corps in actions such as the defense of Antwerp, the Gallipoli landings, the Battle of the Somme, the Zeebrugge Raid and the Allied intervention in North Russia. It covers the Marines in action aboard ship at the Dardanelles and Jutland, and throws a spotlight on the little-known Royal Marines presence in the West Indies. Flying Marines operated with the Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Flying Corps, often with noted bravery. Wherever possible the words used are those of the men who were there, and these eye-witness accounts (some never before published) offer an immediacy and freshness to this story.

The war of 1809 between France and Habsburg Austria, culminating in the titanic battle of Wagram, has been described often as Napoleon’s last successful campaign. Napoleon said later that the manoeuvres and actions of the French army and their German allies in the opening two weeks of this conflict were among the most brilliant and skilful of his entire career. But matters might have gone very differently. A series of miscalculations, mistakes and poor communications, both prior to Austria’s declaration of war and in the early days of hostilities, might have resulted in a major setback, if not a disaster, for the French Emperor. That they did not is due in large part to the decisions and actions of Marshal Louis Davout, the so-called “Iron Marshall”This is the first English study of Marshal Davout's command and leadership in over fifty years. Little known outside of France, Louis Davout was one of the finest generals in Napoleon's army, as evidenced by his comprehensive defeat of the main Prussian force at Auerstadt in October 1806. A hard, even harsh, disciplinarian, an utterly ruthless opponent on the field of battle, Davout was also a loving family man, meticulously concerned for the health and well-being of his troops, and able to command the loyalty of his divisional commanders for far longer than any of his contemporaries.In this new study, Martin Sullivan describes in detail the decision-making processes and actions of Marshal Davout, and from this analysis illustrates leadership concepts and theories which remain relevant to the world of today. Focusing upon the opening phase of the Wagram campaign, he examines in detail the decisions and actions of the participants, Davout, his opponent the Archduke Charles, and Napoleon himself. By this method the art of leadership may be seen exercised in the heat of an intense and deadly conflict.

The SAS is the most famous regiment in the world and the subject of countless books, documentaries and TV dramas, including the BBC mini-series Rogue Heroes. Much of the action of the second season of Rogue Heroes is located in Italy, where both 1SAS and 2SAS took part in many daring operations in 1943.The third volume of Gavin Mortimer’s impeccably researched and handsomely illustrated SAS Operations covers their missions in Sicily and Italy. After the derring-do of Desert Warfare, when the SAS raided enemy airfields in heavily-armed jeeps, the operations in Sicily and Italy were more challenging and diverse in nature.Sometimes the SAS inserted by parachute and sabotaged trains or attacked vehicle convoys; at other times they stormed beaches from landing craft and neutralised enemy coastal batteries. Whatever the mission the SAS displayed their characteristic courage, initiative and determination in the vanguard of the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy.In this book Mortimer describes in detail these operations, embellishing his gripping narrative with first-hand accounts from the scores of SAS veterans he interviewed. Drawing also on personal papers, diaries, private photographs and his many visits to the sites of the action, Mortimer blends the past with the present so that readers can follow in the footsteps of such SAS legends as Paddy Mayne and Roy Farran

Following the defeat of the Taliban in 2001 Amir joined the Afghan Army becoming an officer. For the next five or so years he is involved in fighting the resurgent Taliban alongside American, British and other coalition soldiers. During an operation to capture a district in Faryab province, his friend Jawad and several other of his soldiers are killed in an ambush and he berates the Afghan Brigade Commander in front of other senior officers, including some from the coalition. Arrested on suspicion of sympathy with the Taliban he faces Court Martial until a US Marine who had been an adviser attached to the Afghan battalion defends him, producing evidence that the Afghan Brigade Commander deliberately suppressed intelligence because the Taliban were holding some of his family hostage. Amir is acquitted but is advised that many senior Afghan officers distrust him for what they see as a betrayal leading Amir to transfer to Special Forces where he is put in command of his own team.On one operation in Helmand, Amir and his team are cut off and besieged in an old fort for nine days, forced to survive by eating snakes and lizards after their food runs out. Fortunately, just before their ammunition ran out a British force backed up by helicopter gunships and American bombers breaks the siege.Amir went on to become a battalion commander for his last four years serving as the US started to withdraw troops and hand over responsibility to the Afghan Army.

A marvel and celebration that contains interviews of those intimately involved in the legacy of an intensely shy and disadvantaged boy from the wrong side of Tupelo, Mississippi who went on to become one of the most idolized and imitated solo performer of all time.Elvis Presley’s life was the ultimate rags to riches story, and it was the rags, as much as the riches that drove him, defined him, and made him the global icon he is today.Born in a shack in America’s Deep South in 1935, to impoverished parents struggling in the wake of the Great Depression, he sprung from a life of deprivation to one of international fame and untold wealth — all before he was twenty.Brought up dirt-poor, but surrounded by love and music from birth, Elvis was infused with the sounds of gospel and the raw, hard-life blues of the ‘cotton country’s’ plantation workers.And when the family radio brought country singers, crooners and spiritual quartets to his young ears, his musical DNA was fully-formed.Elvis’ boarding pass for the rocket-ship to stardom was a voice of liquid gold and his striking appearance upgraded him to a VIP fast-track ticket into the entertainment stratosphere.His unique sense of style and musical talent went hand-in-hand in creating Elvis the Showman. As a teenager, before he sang a note, it was his unconventional look that singled him out among his peers. Later, it was his voice that stopped a conservative 1950s America in its tracks.This book looks at how Elvis broke down cultural and racial barriers and smiled in the face of safe dressing. His bold outfits were his trademark yet, no matter how dazzling, they never outshone him. They were also his force shield, superhero costumes that protected him from anxiety, pain, the glare of the spotlight and, in difficult times, from reality.It considers how Elvis’s extraordinary style — as much as his pioneering music — defined his life and the experiences that he lived through.It includes exclusive interviews with:* Hal Lansky, whose family dressed Elvis for three decades, and who advised Austin Butler on what to wear playing him in the 2022 movie, Elvis.* Award-wining producer director, Steve Binder who resurrected Elvis’ career and put him in that black leather suit for the 1968 Comeback Special.* Butch and Kim Polston, who maintain Elvis’ legacy, recreating his spectacular 1970s Vegas jumpsuits, including those worn by Butler.Elvis: The King of Fashion marvels at how an intensely shy and disadvantaged boy from the wrong side of Tupelo, Mississippi, went from homespun to Hollywood in the blink of an eye and became the most popular, successful, idolized and imitated solo performer of all time.Most of all, it regards the rollercoaster life of Elvis the man through a fashion lens as he strode like a colossus through the world of showbusiness, dressed like The King he never quite believed he was.

Before the French Revolution, the Russian Empire played a minor role in the history of Western Europe, yet its involvement in the wars of the Republic and against Napoleon would change its influence on the fate of the continent forever. Fighting the Russians examines the crucial role played by the men of the Czar's Empire through hundreds of original letters, notebooks and accounts written by French soldiers at the time of the events or shortly after the fall of Napoleon. These rare unpublished sources, or those never before translated into English, recount key moments such as the battles of Zurich, Austerlitz, Eylau, Borodino and Leipzig, the burning of Moscow, the passage of the Berezina and the capture of Paris by the Cossacks. The terrible retreat from Russia and the torture inflicted on French soldiers by irregulars are also examined, as well as the times Napoleon was almost captured by Russian horsemen. Together, these writings plunge the reader into a world of unprecedented violence, but they also reveal the French fascination with the Russians, who were perceived as strange individuals from faraway lands whose courage bordered on madness.

In February 1917, German U-boats launched a savage unrestricted campaign against both Allied and neutral shipping. At its peak in April, 860,000 tons of Allied merchant shipping was sunk. Britain’s supremacy at sea was being severely challenged and with it the chances of victory in the wider war.Taking up the challenge was Britain’s new First Sea Lord, Sir John Jellicoe, until the previous December C-in-C of the Grand Fleet — famously described by Churchill as the only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon. The battle he now faced was equally critical, although the timeline of defeat was a matter of days rather than hours — Britain’s food stocks were dangerously low with wheat reserves down to six weeks and sugar to only two, while wide-scale shortages were crippling the industrial economy.Jellicoe outlined the gravity of the situation with total candor to Rear Admiral William Sims, USN, sent over before America officially declared war by Franklin Roosevelt, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The two men already knew each other from service together in China during the Boxer Rebellion, so Jellicoe’s plea for urgent American assistance was taken seriously by Sims. After the USA joined the war in April 1917, together they lobbied Washington for aid, addressing their needs directly to two reluctant Anglophobes at the head of the USN, Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels and Chief of Naval Operations, William Benson.Clearly, a radical new approach to anti-submarine warfare was called for, and Convoy was the leading contender. There were many objections to protecting shipping in this way, some ideological but most practical — a workable system, for example, effectively required state control of both shipping and distribution networks, something inconceivable in normal circumstances. However, Convoy had powerful advocates, including the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, who later claimed he had personally forced its adoption on a reluctant Admiralty. This self-serving political myth cast Jellicoe as an opponent of Convoy: nothing could be further from the truth.As both Jellicoe and Sims understood, the key requirement was a rapid increase in the number of destroyers for escort duties. America provided them, the first arriving in Queenstown, Ireland on 4 May and by June 46 were operating in European waters. This was the first step in an Anglo-American campaign that gradually brought the U-boat threat under control and led to its ultimate defeat.This book takes a fresh look at the undersea war as a whole and all the complex factors bearing on the campaign, only one of which was convoy. Its analysis is original, and its conclusions thought-provoking — an important contribution to the naval history of the Great War.

To the fifteen passengers and crew onboard the lumbering Short Sunderland flying boat, everything appeared normal and routine as it lifted off from the seaplane base at RAF Invergordon on Sunday, 25 August 1942. Its destination was Iceland, where one of the passengers, Air Commodore HRH Prince George, The Duke of Kent, supported by his entourage, was to undertake an inspection of various RAF bases in Iceland in his role as a senior RAF Welfare Officer.It was about thirty minutes later that disaster struck. At 13.42 hours, the Sunderland ploughed into a hillside on the remote headland known as Eagle's Rock, near Dunbeath in Caithness. Apart from the rear gunner, everyone on board, including Prince George, was instantly killed.There was a Court of Inquiry, which opened on 28 August and completed on 1 September. This resulted in a disagreement between two senior officers in relation to its conclusion. The funeral of the Duke surprisingly, took place on the 29th during the Court of Inquiry. There was also a rapid and thorough wreckage clearance of the scene by 16 September and the apparent disjointed recording of the various men’s deaths with the registrar.Pilot error was the official cause for the crash, allegedly ‘signed off’ by the Chief Inspector of Accidents, but hard evidence has been difficult to find since 1942. In fact, the Court of Inquiry report could not be sourced in the UK and had to be obtained from the Australian archives.Witness statements and any possible technical assessments have also disappeared and are not even contained in the Australian file. So where are they, and why have the documents for the second worst fatal air crash up to that period of time gone missing? In addition, where is the Duke of Kent’s diary and personal papers for this period? Where any plans drawn of the site and the position of the casualties? Where post mortems carried out and by whom?Over the years a variety of researchers, historians and authors have sought to identify whether the cause of the crash was pilot error or something else. Others have sought to explain it with a number of possible conspiracy theories including murder, a Nazi plot, a plot linked to Rudolf Hess and a peace initiative.The author, a former police senior investigating officer who was a member of the first Murder Review in London in the late 1990s, has sought to gather all the available evidence from a wide variety of resources. He looks at the history of the main characters and any possible reasons or motives they may have been targeted or involved in a plot. He seeks to find further evidence, even allowing after more than 80 years for hearsay evidence in his review. He also examines the investigation and what it perhaps should have done in 1942.While other books, newspapers and magazine articles have sought to establish the cause and or a conspiracy behind the fatal crash, this author covers all bases and asks what evidence is missing and why?

The orphaned Philadelphia Austen was forced to seek for herself those objects of eighteenth-century womanhood: social esteem and financial independence. Her story is circumscribed by the limitations of women’s lives of that time and opens up a wider exploration of those times through a detailed examination of one particular woman: Jane Austen’s ‘aunt Phila’.The story of her aunt had impressed the young Jane Austen when she created a character, Cecilia Wynne, in her short fiction, Catharine or the Bower, written when she was sixteen. Cecilia’s experience as an orphaned ‘girl of genius and feeling’ being ‘sent in quest of a husband to Bengal’, mirrored that of her recently deceased aunt. Such a connection between author and aunt sparked an interest in an otherwise neglected member of the Austen clan.How did this aunt who had provided inspiration for the young Jane manage to make her way in the world? How did the course of her life reflect the lives of other women of her times? What worlds did she move in? What people did she meet? Little was known about Philadelphia, yet her daughter Eliza, was said to be a central figure in Jane Austen’s life.The conventional trajectory Philadelphia’s was changed when, after completing a millinery apprenticeship in London, she took the chance of a journey to India and an arranged marriage. There she became part of the colorful world of the honorable East India Company and encountered many of its most notable people. Her life was transformed.

Examines Fritz Schubert's brutal actions and atrocities across occupied Crete and Macedonia during WWII.Hitler's Hunting Squad in Southern Europe traces the violent path of Fritz Schubert and his Greek 'hunting squad' across occupied Crete and Macedonia, offering a complete translation of Thanasis Fotiou’s comprehensive study on the German Lieutenant during World War II.The author's research reveals previously unknown aspects of Schubert's life and his actions as an officer, including the murder and torture of civilians, and the looting and burning of homes.Fritz Schubert, born in 1897, joined the German Forces in 1914 and concluded his service in Turkey, where he settled and married. By 1934, he had joined the National Socialist Party, influenced by Nazi ideology and propaganda. Fluent in several languages, he trained at the School of Interpreters under the reserve army's administration, attaining the rank of Unteroffizier. Hitler intended for Crete to play a significant role in the Middle East and Egypt due to its strategic oil reserves.In 1947, a special commissioner's report on Schubert's hunting squad stated, 'They murdered, they tortured in the most brutal ways numerous civilians, they looted and burned many homes. Generally, the arrival of Schubert's gang signaled unrelenting plunder, marked by tears, pain, and bloodshed.'

Compiles firsthand accounts of Polish resistance, exile, and wartime struggles during WWII.Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalin’s Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939 and the two autocracies proved utterly ruthless in their efforts to subjugate the Polish people. The resultant loss of life was almost unimaginable in scale but Poles from all walks of life refused to submit, either at home or abroad. Germany turned on its Soviet ally in June 1941, with Britain, the USA and the USSR eventually becoming partners in the war against Hitler. At various meetings and conferences, the ‘Big Three’ agreed post-war Poland would fall into the Soviet sphere of influence and Poles fighting for a free and independent country found themselves cut adrift. They had a stark choice after VE Day: live in Poland dominated by Stalin’s puppets or face a life in exile.Betrayal of Poland is the first major English-language compendium of Polish first-hand accounts from the Second World War. Two of the witnesses flew over the Third Reich and faced the deadly threat of night fighters and flak. One fought at Hill 262 in Normandy, joining the effort to close the Falaise Gap, while another was parachuted into the Arnhem campaign. Two saw the horrors of Auschwitz: one from behind the wire and the other outside it. Others detailed the hell of being deported into Stalin’s Soviet Union and their daily struggle to survive. Departing the USSR and joining what became the Polish II Corps, many went onto to fight at Monte Cassino. Finally, several witnesses recalled life under German Occupation and how they joined the Warsaw Uprising — the unequal and ultimately doomed battle against some of Hitler’s most-murderous units.Backed by comprehensive appendices and several never-seen-before photographs, this work is a must-have for anyone interested in Polish history or the Second World War.

Based on Captain John Orr's previously unseen campaign diary and personal documents, this is the first biography of the man who would become Superintendent of the Scottish Naval & Military Academy (SNMA). We follow John during his eighteen months in Portugal and Spain informed by his first-hand accounts of the Battle of Salamanca, the siege of Burgos and fighting in the Pyrenees. Later he fought at Quatre Bras and was wounded at Waterloo. He was retired on full pension in 1821.Ten years later, aged 41, resigning himself that he would no longer be commissioned into a regiment, he enrolled as a captain in the Edinburgh Militia. Almost immediately he was asked to become the Superintendent of the Scottish Naval & Military Academy which was situated in Edinburgh. It had been established six years earlier and was struggling after the Directors had made a number of bad decisions.John’s appointment stabilised the SNMA and the enrolment started to grow. He had enthusiasm for his job and managed to mix discipline with affection for the boys. In 1832 the Duke of Wellington became President. By the mid-1840s it had become a successful military college. It sent over a thousand young men into the services, including over a hundred who fought in the Crimean War. Nearly every British army regiment had at least one officer who had studied at the SNMA.Through John's letters, the history of the Academy is interwoven with a description of the Orr family. John died in 1879, aged 89 years old. He was the last surviving member of the Black Watch who had fought at Waterloo.The book is brought to life with paintings and photographs of John, his family, his uniform and pages from his Peninsular War diary. It is an intimate portrait of a soldier who served his country on and off the battle field.